Patient banned over his political beliefs

David Holland · 15-05-2006, 09:34 AM

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...176383,00.html

Quote:

One way to cut waiting lists: don't treat people with the wrong views
Notebook by Mick Hume
IT IS BAD enough that you can be refused medical treatment on the NHS for eating, drinking or smoking too much. Now it seems that you can be denied an operation for protesting too much in support of your religious or political beliefs.

Edward Atkinson, a 75-year-old anti-abortion activist, was jailed recently for 28 days for sending photographs of aborted foetuses to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King’s Lynn, Norfolk. That draconian sentence was not deemed punishment enough: the hospital has banned Mr Atkinson from receiving the hip replacement operation he was expecting.

Mr Atkinson sounds like an unpleasant crank, and I am as much in favour of legalised abortion as he is against it. But his treatment (or the lack of it) is a scandal. This is about admitting a man to hospital, not electing him to Parliament. Even unhip old bigots need replacement hips.

Ruth May, the hospital’s chief executive, claims that the ban is justified because the “offensive” publications he mailed caused “great distress” to her and her staff and thus contravened the NHS policy of “zero tolerance”. Some may already feel that such policies make it seem as if a hospital’s priority is to protect its staff against the patients, rather than protecting patients from illness. This case goes farther, equating the posting of offensive photos with punching a nurse on the nose.

Why on earth should hospitals be distressed by pictures of the sort of operations that they carry out? An aborted late-term foetus can certainly make a grisly spectacle, and there is no point trying to sanitise abortion. But neither need anybody be intimidated by the handful of zealots who like to wave around such bloody abortion porn.

In any case, that debate about abortion should have nothing to do with decisions about who gets hip replacements. Have hospital authorities been granted the power to turn away anybody who upsets them? It may come as a shock to delicate souls in the upper echelons of the NHS, but some elderly people can be cantankerous, obnoxious and express unfashionable opinions in an uninhibited way. So what? Should the NHS introduce a policy of euthanasia for offensive old gits?

We should take the principle of universal health care seriously, and insist that medical staff make decisions about treatment on clinical grounds alone. After all, so far as science can deduce, a member of the British National Party or an Islamic fundamentalist is the same as you or I under the surgeon’s knife. Even loons who oppose animal experiments should be given the benefits of medical research that they would deny to others.

Many who normally shout about patients’ rights have fallen silent over the case of Mr Atkinson. But you need not be anti-abortion to protest against the notion that only obedient individuals with healthy lifestyles deserve NHS treatment. Perhaps those who would put their own feelings ahead of others’ needs should be advised that if you can’t stand the patients, get out of the hospital.

This makes me feel sick.

mkpdavies · 15-05-2006, 09:50 AM

Just another step down the totalitarian route we are being herded down.

Intbel · 15-05-2006, 03:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mkpdavies

Just another step down the totalitarian route we are being herded down.

It is.

Won't be long before you'll be put to the bottom of a waiting list just 'cos you are a member of UKIP.

I'm rather pleased I only have another sixty years to live ...

colin smith · 15-05-2006, 04:00 PM

Hi David,
Nothing surprises me anymore regarding Blair's Government and it's policies. Anything to save money and to keep the waiting list as short as possible. I have just read that expectant mothers are now going to be encouraged to give birth at home. A few years ago this was considered a No-No. I wonder if it has anything to do with money and shortage of beds ?
To get back to your thread ,does that mean that prisoners will no longer have medical treatment at the taxpayer's expense ?

John Carter · 15-05-2006, 04:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Intbel

I'm rather pleased I only have another sixty years to live ...

You're very eloquent for an eight-year-old.

I mean, they're going to have us on the Carousel at 68, right? Saves oodles in pension payments.

Or do you plan on bribing a few sandmen and making a run for it?

mkpdavies · 15-05-2006, 04:07 PM

Sanctuary.

Where is it?

Intbel · 15-05-2006, 04:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Carter

You're very eloquent for an eight-year-old.

Yup - think how good I'll be when I'm all growed up.

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Carter

I mean, they're going to have us on the Carousel at 68, right? Saves oodles in pension payments.

I never did intend retiring

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Carter

Or do you plan on bribing a few sandmen and making a run for it?

Sure, why not? Most men, sandy or otherwise, have their price.

TomPhil · 16-05-2006, 06:02 PM

Quote:

Ruth May, the hospital’s chief executive, claims that the ban is justified because the “offensive” publications he mailed caused “great distress” to her

Not as much distress as being killed caused to the unborn baby, though, I should imagine, or as much distress as the abortion may well cause to the parents of the aborted baby at the time or further down the line.

15-05-2006, 09:50 AM	#2 (permalink)
mkpdavies Uber Member Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Woking Posts: 32,059 Party: Libertarian Party	Just another step down the totalitarian route we are being herded down. __________________ http://brits4ronpaul.blogspot.com/ http://wokinglibertarians.blogspot.com/ http://lpuk.org My ignore list Labour, Lib Dems

15-05-2006, 04:07 PM	#6 (permalink)
mkpdavies Uber Member Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Woking Posts: 32,059 Party: Libertarian Party	Sanctuary. Where is it? __________________ http://brits4ronpaul.blogspot.com/ http://wokinglibertarians.blogspot.com/ http://lpuk.org My ignore list Labour, Lib Dems

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15-05-2006, 04:00 PM	#4 (permalink)
colin smith Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 181	Hi David, Nothing surprises me anymore regarding Blair's Government and it's policies. Anything to save money and to keep the waiting list as short as possible. I have just read that expectant mothers are now going to be encouraged to give birth at home. A few years ago this was considered a No-No. I wonder if it has anything to do with money and shortage of beds ? To get back to your thread ,does that mean that prisoners will no longer have medical treatment at the taxpayer's expense ?